Handbook on the history of the fatherland. Handbook on the history of the fatherland Achievements of Soviet culture in the 1930s

This lesson is dedicated to the culture and art of the USSR in the 1930s. Despite the totalitarian control of the state over all spheres of the cultural development of society, the art of the USSR in the 1930s. did not lag behind the world trends of that time. The introduction of technological progress, as well as new trends from the West, contributed to the flourishing of literature, music, theater and cinema. In the course of today's lesson, you will learn what factors influenced the culture of the USSR in the 1930s, what new things happened in the field of education, science, painting, architecture, literature, music, theater and cinema

Rice. 2. Tsvetaeva M.I. ()

Economic development also affects the development of culture and art. In the country in the 1930s, just as in the 20s, educated people were needed. The country needs competent highly qualified specialists in all sectors, in all areas. Education is developing, as well as culture, science and art.

Interesting changes are taking place in the social sphere. Culture becomes more mass, i.e. large quantity people receive education, get the opportunity to join the cultural and spiritual values. On the other hand, in order to please these masses of the population, cultural figures and artists are forced to lower the bar, to make art accessible and understandable to the people. Art as a method of influencing a person, as a method of understanding the world, can be a very important and powerful ally of power. Of course, the art of the 1930s. not so much opposed the authorities as helped, it was one of the means of establishing the Stalinist regime, a method of establishing the communist ideology, a method of establishing the cult of personality.

In the 30s. contacts with other countries have not yet ceased. Mutual exchange of cultural ideas, trips, exhibitions are not as intense as in the 1920s, but, nevertheless, they do occur. The USSR was a multinational country, and in the 1930s. high level reaches the national culture, there is a separate written language of the small peoples of the Soviet Union.

Culture and art continued to comprehend the events that took place in the 1930s. There were no bright events, but the impetus given by the revolution continued its action. In the 1930s the Bolsheviks continued to talk about the cultural revolution, and the first task was to raise the level of education, the elimination of illiteracy. In the early 30s. universal 4-year free education is introduced, at the end of the 30s. the 7-year-old becomes obligatory and also free. Total secondary school then included the program of 9 classes (see Fig. 3).

Rice. 3. Soviet poster ()

Moreover, a huge number of new schools were built, many of these schools, built in the 1930s, with large spacious classrooms and corridors, still stand in our cities.

In addition to the system of secondary education, higher education is also developing. By the end of the 30s. in the USSR there were several thousand higher educational institutions. A huge number of new educational institutions, branches of higher educational institutions were opened. Almost a million people by 1940 had higher education. There have been changes in the structure higher education. From Ser. 30s a greater role began to be given to the social sciences, especially history. In the 20-30s. continuity was maintained in the field of teaching mathematics, physics, and other exact and natural sciences, but with the humanities, everything was different. We can say that in the 1920s - early 1930s. history simply did not exist, the historical faculties in Moscow and Leningrad institutes have been eliminated. Since 1934, the tasks have changed.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. The German national idea, patriotic, was perverted by the Nazis. In this regard, the education system is changing, more attention is paid to those sciences that are engaged in the education and development of patriotic feelings in a person.

Great success in the 30s. in particular, such famous Soviet physicists and chemists as P.L. Kapitsa, A.F. Ioffe, I.V. Kurchatov, G.N. Flerov, who worked in different fields. S.V. Lebedev, the famous Soviet chemist, through his experiments, achieved the production of synthetic rubber (see Fig. 4, 5, 6).

Rice. 4. P.L. Kapitsa ()

Rice. 5. A.F. Ioffe()

Rice. 6. S.V. Lebedev ()

Things were not so good in the humanities. In the 1930s there were several discussions, in particular, on history. As a result of these discussions, the opinion was established that the entire history of mankind, according to the theory of Karl Marx, is five formations successively replacing each other: primitiveness, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, smoothly turning into communism. Socio-economic formation is the central concept of the Marxist theory of society or historical materialism. By means of the OEF, ideas about society as a certain system were fixed and at the same time the main periods of its historical development were singled out. It was believed that any social phenomenon can be correctly understood only in connection with a certain GEF, an element or product of which it is. The history of all countries and peoples has begun to conform to this pattern, to this pattern. There were discussions, discussions could be held, but when the discussion ended, often on instructions from above, it was forbidden to argue further and only one point of view was recognized as correct. Living scientific life was stopped, because science without discussions is impossible. Also, science was severely damaged by repression. Repressed scientists: N.I. Vavilov, P.A. Florensky, E.V. Tarle, S.F. Platonov, D.S. Likhachev. (see Fig. 7).

Rice. 7. D.S. Likhachev ()

Art and literature also developed in the 1930s. It must be said that more significant changes are taking place in the sphere of literature and art than in the sphere of development of science and education. Since 1934, there has been a creative organization in the country that unites all writers - the Union of Writers of the Soviet Union. Until 1934, there were several organizations: LEF (left front), the Union of Russian Writers, the Organization of Peasant Writers, etc. In 1934, they all united, and under the leadership of Maxim Gorky, a new organization was created - the Union of Writers. At the beginning of 1929, the LEF association broke up; it did not become part of the Writers' Union. After some time, the Union of Composers, the Union of Architects appeared. The Soviet authorities organized such unions in order to take literary and artistic figures under control. Thus, control by the authorities in a totalitarian regime is carried out by different methods. Firstly, this is purely administrative control, and secondly, through the unions of writers, journalists, artists, composers. A sufficiently large number of excellent writers could not fit into this new organized literary life. M.A. was practically not printed. Bulgakov, they stopped publishing A.P. Platonov, hounded M.I. Tsvetaev, died in the camps of O.E. Mandelstam, N.A. Klyuev. Repression touched many writers. At the same time, A.N. Tolstoy, M. Gorky, A.A. Fadeev, S.Ya. Marshak, A.P. Gaidar, K.M. Simonov, M.A. Sholokhov, K.I. Chukovsky, A.L. Barto, M.M. Prishvin. To the verses of Soviet poets M.V. Isakovsky, V.I. Lebedev-Kumach composed amazing songs (see Fig. 8, 9, 10).

Rice. 8. Korney Chukovsky ()

Rice. 9. Aibolit. Korney Chukovsky ()

Rice. 10. Agnia Barto ()

Interesting processes took place in other areas of art. Music is a difficult area to perceive. 30s - these are the years of different music: on the one hand, S.S. Prokofiev, D.D. Shostakovich wrote serious symphonic music. But the masses of Soviet citizens sang the songs of A.V. Alexandrov, for example, his famous song "Katyusha", which became popular. Among the famous performers of that time are L.P. Orlova, L.O. Utyosov. In 1932 the Union of Soviet Composers was founded.

Art is always a struggle, it is an artist's struggle with himself, it is a struggle of styles, a struggle of directions. In the 1930s Socialist realism continues to assert itself - a theoretical principle and the main artistic direction that dominated the USSR in the mid-1930s. - early 1980s In Soviet art and art criticism already in the late 1920s. an idea was formed about the historical purpose of art - to affirm socialist ideals, images of new people and new social relations in a generally accessible realistic form. The Russian avant-garde (P. Filonov, Robert Falk, Kazimir Malevich) gradually fades into the background. At the same time, P. Korin, P. Vasiliev, M. Nesterov continued to create, began to paint portraits famous people, scientists, doctors, artists.

Interesting processes continue in architecture. There is such a trend as constructivism, the avant-garde in architecture. One of the directions of the avant-garde said that architecture should be functional. Homes, in addition to being beautiful, should also be simple and comfortable. In the 30s. Soviet urban planning is born. Large, spacious, bright, as convenient as possible cities, new cities of the future - their creation was in the first place among Soviet architects. A. Shchusev, K. Melnikov, the Vesnin brothers are architects who created a new look for our country. In addition to houses, apart from residential areas, there was an idea to show the beauty of the industrial world, to build beautiful factories, so that a person, looking at this industrial landscape, would understand that the country was moving towards a bright future.

At the end of the 30s. in all branches of art: in painting, and in sculpture, and in architecture, a great style begins to appear - the Soviet Empire style. This is the imperial style, it is characterized by large beautiful powerful houses, paintings depicting heroes. The Stalin Empire style is the leading direction in Soviet architecture (1933-1935), which replaced rationalism and constructivism and became widespread during the reign of I.V. Stalin (see Fig. 11, 12).

Rice. 11. Stalinist empire. Hotel "Ukraine" ()

Rice. 12. Stalinist empire. Ministry of Foreign Affairs ()

The sculpture of V.I. Mukhina "Worker and Collective Farm Girl", prepared for the world exhibition in Paris in 1937 (see Fig. 13).

Rice. 13. Sculpture "Worker and Collective Farm Girl". IN AND. Mukhina ()

Movie

Cinema carried an important ideological load. It told about the revolutionary struggle (“Youth of Maxim”, “Return of Maxim”, “Vyborg side” - directors G. Kozintsev and L. Trauberg); about the fight against internal enemies (“The Great Citizen” - directed by F. Ermler); about happy life Soviet people(comedies directed by G. Aleksandrov with the participation of L. Orlova "Jolly Fellows", "Circus", "Volga-Volga"); about overcoming difficulties ("Seven Courageous" - directed by S. Gerasimov). In the film directed by M. Romm "Lenin in 1918", Stalin appeared for the first time in the cinema. In 1938, on Stalin's orders, S. Eisenstein staged the film Alexander Nevsky, starring N. Cherkasov. Composers I. Dunaevsky, N. Bogoslovsky, V. Solovyov-Sedoy wrote songs for cinema.

Theatre

In the sphere of theatrical life, the Bolshoi Theater was considered the main musical theater, and the Moscow Art Academic Theater (MKhAT) named after M.V. Chekhov. Galina Ulanova shone in the ballet. Composers were encouraged to create opera and ballet performances on heroic themes. In particular, R. Gliere's ballet "The Flames of Paris" (about french revolution) and A. Cheshko's opera The Battleship Potemkin.

Let's summarize. Creation a large number educated people, institutions, the development and expansion of branches of the Academy of Sciences led to an increase in the level of education, the creation of a new layer of the Soviet intelligentsia. On the whole, positive processes were going on in education and science, with the exception of the tragic moments of repression. In the 1930s art, painting, music, literature, sculpture, architecture developed.

Homework

1. Describe the processes of development of education, science and artistic culture of the USSR in the 1930s.
2. Why do you think the 1930s special attention was paid to the teaching of history?
3. Expand the essence of the method of socialist realism in art. What works of socialist realism do you know?
4. Which of the repressed in the 1930s. can you name the figures of science and culture? Prepare a report or message about their activities and creativity.

Bibliography

1. Shestakov V.A., Gorinov M.M., Vyazemsky E.E. Russian history,
2. XX - beginning of the XXI century, 9th grade: textbook. for general education institutions; under. ed.
3. A.N. Sakharov; Ros. acad. Sciences, Ros. acad. education, publishing house "Enlightenment". -
4. 7th ed. - M.: Enlightenment, 2011. - 351 p.
5. Kiselev A.F., Popov V.P. Russian history. XX - the beginning of the XXI century. Grade 9: textbook. for general education institutions. - 2nd ed., stereotype. - M.: Bustard, 2013. - 304 p.
6. Lezhen E.E. Poster as a means of political agitation in the 1917-1930s. Bulletin of the Saratov State Social and Economic
7. university. - Issue No. 3. - 2013. - UDC: 93/94.
8. Braginsky D.Yu. Sports motives in Russian art of the 1920-1930s. Proceedings of the Russian State Pedagogical University A.I. Herzen. - Issue No. 69. - 2008. - UDC: 7.

1. mobile.studme.org().
2. Nado5.ru ().
3. countries.ru ().
4. Russia.rin.ru ().

What is culture? There are many answers to this question. In a broad sense, culture is everything that is created by the mind and hands of man. There is a material and spiritual culture, a culture of work, life, etc. The main subject of our consideration is “culture and time”. First of all, we will talk about those events, phenomena, people of culture who vividly reflected their era in its ideas and values, scientific and technical achievements, and artistic monuments.

In the first decades of the XX century. among the European intelligentsia, there were feelings of crisis and disintegration of the surrounding world, a premonition of imminent changes and even the end of the existing order of things. Then the Russian philosopher N. A. Berdyaev wrote an essay with the remarkable title "The End of Europe", and the German O. Spengler - the book "The Decline of Europe" (literally - "The Decline of the Western World"), which became widely known after the World War. These works debunked rational-optimistic ideas about European history, the belief in infinite progress and the increasing well-being of mankind. Instead, the ideas of a cultural and historical cycle, an inevitable change of cultures, were put forward.

In artistic culture, the position of realism, which was the highest achievement of the 19th century, began to weaken more and more noticeably. Arising at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. the new artistic movement was given a name that emphasized its modernity - modernism. It represented different trends and groups that did not have a single ideological and artistic program. Common were the departure from the traditions and ideals of the old art, as well as the search for new artistic forms and means.

A special place in artistic culture late XIX- beginning of XX century. occupied the Art Nouveau style (note the difference between the concepts of "modern" and "modernism"), which has spread in many European countries (in France - under the name "Art Nouveau", in Germany - "Jugendstil", etc.). It was based on the idea that art creates beauty and brings it into life, which in itself is not very good and attractive. Synthesis of different arts was considered one of the means to achieve this goal: architecture, decorative and applied arts, painting, graphics, etc. Art Nouveau masters also widely used combinations of elements of different styles: European and Oriental, modern and traditional. Particularly significant were the achievements of Art Nouveau in architecture, where unusual in appearance, refined, and sometimes pretentious buildings with a convenient internal layout were created. However, for all its artistic expressiveness, Art Nouveau remained a style for the elite and soon gave way to other trends.

The most daring search for new artistic forms and means of expression was carried out by the so-called avant-garde ( french word"avant-garde" means "advanced") currents and groups. Here the poets experimented with the forms and size of the verse (one can recall, for example, the early works of V. V. Mayakovsky), the artists experimented with the color and composition of the paintings. The painters did not set themselves the task of displaying any object close to reality; their paintings often had no plot at all. The decisive role was played by the visions and feelings of the artist himself. Fauvism (translated from French as “wild”), primitivism, expressionism, cubism, and abstractionism became well-known modernist movements during this period. Over the course of two or three decades, they changed, developed into other currents. Many major masters whose names were associated with individual movements (for example, A. Matisse - with Fauvism, M. Chagall - with primitivism, P. Picasso - with Cubism) actually "did not fit" into this narrow and rather arbitrary framework . They did not obey the canons of this or that trend, they improved their own style and manner of painting, which then became models. A notable phenomenon in the modernist movements of the early 20th century. was the work of V. Kandinsky, K. Malevich, N. Goncharova, L. Popova and other Russian artists.

Artistic culture of the 1920s–1930s

The World War and the events that followed it brought severe trials and losses to millions of people, shook the foundations of the social order, and gave impetus to attempts at its revolutionary transformation. During this period, both the contradictions that divided people and the aspirations for freedom and justice common to many were revealed. This could not but be reflected in the culture of subsequent decades.

In post-war literature, writers of the “lost generation” occupied a prominent place: the German E. M. Remarque, the American E. Hemingway, the Englishman R. Aldington, and others. They participated in the war and could not forget what they saw and experienced. Showing the life of their heroes in the war, they protested against the terrible extermination of people in their everyday life. At the same time, the cause for which the war was waged was called into question. The English poet R. Brooke wrote about this during the war years: “And if I die, just think that somewhere there is a particle of a foreign land that has become England.” The anti-war orientation of the works of the writers of the "lost generation" caused different attitudes - support from some people and irritation from others. So, the Nazis used the novel by E. M. Remarque “All Quiet on the Western Front” as an excuse to deprive the writer of German citizenship.

Unlike the writers of the “lost generation”, who were dominated by a feeling of regret for the lost ideals and values, many figures of European culture saw in the turbulent events of the first decades of the 20th century. implementation of the most important social and political ideas. They were attracted by the active struggle of people against inequality and injustice, for social and national liberation. Such views were shared by the French writers A. Barbusse and R. Rolland, the German G. Mann, the American T. Dreiser, and others. Their heroes did not find a place for themselves in bourgeois society. Some of them fought against this society, as in A. Barbusse's novel "Fire", while others, like Clyde Griffith from "An American Tragedy" by T. Dreiser, sought to break through in it at any cost and died without reaching their goal.

In the literature and art of this trend, features characteristic of modern times - the ideologization and politicization of culture - were noticeably manifested. Many of the artists who belonged to him joined the communist parties, were engaged in political and social activities. Representatives of revolutionary art in different countries united in unions and associations, such as the "Workers' Council for the Arts" in Germany (1918-1919), the "Left Front" in Czechoslovakia (since 1929), the "Union of Proletarian Art" in Japan (1929-1934), etc. .

Some masters of culture, who did not belong to any ideological and artistic associations and political parties, turned to new social ideas, believing that they would help overcome the injustice and inhumanity of the existing system. Among them was one of the brightest and most original writers of the 20th century. B. Brecht.

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) was born into a wealthy family. Already in his youth, he came to a spontaneous rejection of the burgher, bourgeois way of life, which was reflected in his first plays. In his mature years, Brecht took up the study of Marxist literature. The events of 1929 - early 1930s in Germany, which he witnessed, strengthened him in his rejection of the existing social order. In 1933, after the Nazis came to power, he left Germany. Brecht became widely known for his performances of his plays The Threepenny Opera, The Mother, and others. In them, he partly used the plots of the works of other authors (the plays of the 18th-century English playwright D. Gay, The Beggar's Opera, and M. Gorky's novel, The Mother) , but created original works with his own idea, style, language. They were distinguished by dynamic action, sharp dialogues, included parables, songs, slogans and statements on the topic of the day. So, one of the characters of the Threepenny Opera, a robber-raider, declares in his defense: “What is a master key compared to an action? What is raiding a bank compared to founding a bank?” Behind the paradox and mockery, to which the author often resorted, were hidden “eternal questions” about the life and death of a person, his falls and rises, dreams and failures. Next to the troublemaker artist was a humanist artist. This last feature was especially pronounced in Brecht's plays The Good Man from Cezuan and Mother Courage and Her Children, created in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

History of the first decades of the XX century. provided rich food for a special literary genre - social fiction. The authors of such works tried to present in the circumstances they invented, outside the real place and time, the events and models of social relations, the features of which they observed in the world around them. In 1920, E. Zamyatin wrote the science fiction novel We, which became one of the first creations in the dystopian genre (published abroad in 1924). Later, O. Huxley's novels “The Beautiful new world"(1932) and D. Orwell "1984" (1949).

In the novel "We" the action takes place in the "mathematically perfect United State". The life of the heroes, denoted instead of names by "numbers", is strictly regulated in production and at home, in personal relationships and entertainment. Artistic creativity is seen in this society as " public service”, and individual consciousness is considered a disease. Hero D-503 is torn between the rigid rules of the system and the human need for friendship and love. In the finale, he informs the Benefactor (the supreme leader of this society) about those who do not want to obey the existing order, about the "enemies of happiness", including the woman he loves. Thus, he dooms them to torture and death, but remains faithful to the system. The novel seems to predict the features of the then totalitarian societies that were taking shape.

A striking example of artistic prophecy was the novel by the Czech writer K. Capek "The War with the Salamanders". It tells a fantastic story about how some amphibious creatures, having come into contact with people, gradually capture more and more "living space", and then, with the help of weapons received from people, start a war aimed at destroying humanity. An entertaining story with elements of a brilliant parody of the society of that time suddenly became scary because of its resemblance to reality. This impression was strengthened by the fact that part of the story was built in the form of newspaper reports, similar in content to the press publications of those years. K. Capek died in 1938, shortly before the outbreak of World War II, in which much of what he predicted came true. In this regard, one cannot but recall the words of A.P. Chekhov: "A real writer is the same as an ancient prophet: he sees more clearly than ordinary people."

In the fine arts of the 1920s and 1930s, as well as in literature, new trends of both realistic and modernist orientation appeared. One of the most striking manifestations of innovation in realistic art was the Mexican school of monumental painting, created by the artists D. Rivera, X. C. Orozco, D. A. Siqueiros and others.

The founders of the school were contemporaries and participants in the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1917. This formed their attitude to life, to their people, ideological positions. D. Siqueiros emphasized: “Our path was different, completely different than that of the artists of the European avant-garde ...” Starting creative activity, he and his comrades defined their main task as follows: “To create monumental and heroic art, humanistic and folk, focused on our great masters of the past and the extraordinary culture of pre-Hispanic America!” The implementation of these intentions was facilitated by the cultural policy of the first post-revolutionary governments, which gave great importance monumental propaganda of the ideas and achievements of the liberation struggle of the peoples of Mexico. Young artists received orders for the design of administrative and public buildings. On the walls and facades of these buildings appeared monumental paintings - frescoes, reflecting the events of history and modernity. Artists denounced the war, the inhumane aspects of bourgeois society, and fascism. Their works combined emotionality, publicism and artistic expressiveness. The themes, images, symbolism of the frescoes were deeply national, the masters of this school continued the traditions of the art of the Indians of Mexico. At the same time, they expressed the feelings of compassion and anger, shock and impulse to freedom inherent in all people. New for the art of that time was the technique of monumental painting invented by the artists.

An active artistic position was supplemented by representatives of this school political activities. In the early 1920s, the Syndicate of Revolutionary Painters, Sculptors and Engravers was created, proclaiming the main task of art to serve the cause of the revolution. The leaders of the Syndicate D. Siqueiros, D. Rivera, X. Guerrero were elected members of the Central Committee of the Mexican Communist Party. The illustrated newspaper Machete, published by the Syndicate, soon became the official organ of the Communist Party.

Significant changes took place in the 1920s and 1930s in the modernist movement. Many of its representatives, having witnessed the war and social upheavals, sought to escape from reality, hide in their own world. Considering life cruel, unmanageable and meaningless, they decided that art should not display, explain and improve it. Moreover, art is irrational (does not obey reason). These ideas formed the basis of surrealism (“supra-realism”) that arose in the 1920s. Its creators argued that creativity is primarily a reflection of the artist's subconscious feelings.

Surrealists most often depicted on their canvases certain fantasies, random combinations of bodies and objects, often deliberately distorted, deformed. The denial of beauty and harmony, anti-aesthetic were characteristic features of this style. It seemed to complete the transition from the mind to the subconscious, from the search for new forms to chaos. Surrealists sought to shock, shock the public, not S. Dali. Dream. 1937 only with his creativity, but also with eccentric, antisocial behavior. Their ideologue A. Breton declared: “The simplest surrealistic action is to go out into the street with a revolver in your hands and, as much as you have enough strength, shoot anywhere into the crowd.” One of the most famous surrealist artists, S. Dali, publicly called his method “critical-paranoid” (nevertheless, in the mid-1930s, the surrealists expelled Dali from their circle for the “too academic” nature of his painting).

Culture in mass society

The formation of a mass society in the industrial countries in the 1920s and 1930s created the conditions for the widespread dissemination of artistic culture. The positive thing was that works of art were more accessible to various strata and groups of the population, became part of public life. The costs, according to connoisseurs of art, consisted in replacing unique, high-profile samples with serial, ordinary art products.

New trends visibly manifested themselves during this period in the art that creates the environment for people - architecture. Here, the currents of rational, constructivist architecture stood out, widely spread in many countries, including Russia.

The emergence of new trends had both technological and social prerequisites. In construction technology, it was associated with the use of reinforced concrete structures, continuous glazing of walls, etc. The social order consisted in the need for extensive, mass building of cities. If in the pre-war years architects focused on the design of office buildings, banks, luxurious mansions, now this list has been replenished with projects of apartment buildings, university and school campuses, industrial buildings, stadiums.

Many architects began to create residential complexes, which, along with typical residential buildings, housed public and domestic facilities. In some cases, these were towns surrounded by parklands for representatives of the so-called middle class, in others - quarters for workers. Projects of residential complexes received special support in the Soviet Union, where they were given an ideological justification: it was emphasized that this was “an opportunity to create a single powerful team that unites most public functions in a communal way.” According to such projects, communal houses, demonstration residential complexes with shops, kindergartens, laundries, etc. were built.

In rationalism and constructivism, simplicity, the correspondence of the forms and the internal layout of the building to its purpose were put in the first place. A prominent representative of European rationalism was the French architect C. E. Le Corbusier (1887-1965). It was he who formulated the most concise manifesto of the new trend: "A house is a machine for living." Corbusier's buildings were raised above the ground on special support pillars, they had the correct geometric shape, a well-thought-out layout, “ribbon” windows, and a flat roof designed for laying out a garden.

Factory in Rotterdam Arch. I. A. Brinkman and others 1928-1930

The well-known school of rationalism "Bauhaus" was created by German architects headed by W. Gropius. The Bauhaus style quickly acquired an international character.

In the 1920s and 1930s, cinematography became a mass art form. It was the time of the formation of cinema, each year brought new artistic and technical discoveries. One of the pinnacles of world cinema during this period was the work of the outstanding actor and director Ch. Chaplin.

Charles Spencer Chaplin (1889–1977) Born in London in an acting family, he followed in the footsteps of his parents from a young age. As a young actor, he came to the United States, where he began directing comedy films at one of the studios in Los Angeles. In 1919, together with several actors and directors, he founded the independent film company United Artistes. Chaplin's most famous films are The Kid (1920), The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936). Their hero is a small man in a bowler hat, oversized boots and a cane. Outward comedy, eccentric tricks and sadness of a lonely person, looking for warmth and sympathy, surprisingly coexisted in him. Watching his adventures, the audience both laughed and cried. Perhaps this brought Chaplin worldwide recognition.

The search for something new and significant achievements marked the first steps of Soviet cinema, which turned to themes of great social significance. The works of film director S. M. Eisenstein (1898-1948) gained international fame. His film "Battleship Potemkin" is included by film critics among the ten best films of all time.

In the late 1920s, The Great Silent, as cinema was called, began to speak (the first sound film was released in the United States in 1927). Silent film stars who lacked the necessary acting technique and voice abilities gave way to a new generation of actors, many of whom came from the theater. The game of actors has become more natural, understandable to the audience. Instead of the previous musical accompaniment in the films, music sounded, which helped to reveal the artistic concept and emphasize the dynamics of the action. Music for sound films was written by many famous composers. One of the high standards in this area, which received international recognition, was the music by S. S. Prokofiev for the film "Alexander Nevsky" (1938).

Film production in the USA has gained a special scope. The 1920s and 1930s went down in history as the "golden age" of Hollywood (this film city arose on the outskirts of Los Angeles shortly before the First World War). It has become an international cinema center with great financial and technical capabilities. Actors and directors from many countries came here. But almost unlimited material possibilities did not give absolute creative freedom. The work of filmmakers was strictly regulated by contracts with film studios. The owners of the "dream factory" (as Hollywood was called) knew very well what kind of product they wanted to receive.

In 1930, the Production Code, mandatory for all studios, was adopted in Hollywood. It said:

“Every American film should claim that the way of life in the United States is the only and best thing for any person. One way or another, every film should be optimistic and show the little man that somewhere and someday he will grab his happiness by the tail. The film should not turn inside out the dark sides of our lives, should not incite decisive and dynamic passions.

A notable feature of the culture of this period was the widespread use of music. She sounded on the radio, in gramophone records. Partly it was classical music - opera and symphony recordings (among the first were made unique recordings of the great opera singers E. Caruso and F. I. Chaliapin). Symphony orchestras appeared on the radio. But pop and dance music was especially popular. This was the heyday of jazz, which originated in the United States and then spread to many countries. It was based on the rhythms of Negro folk music and improvisation. In the same years, a musical was born - a special kind of performance that combined speech, singing and dancing.

Totalitarianism and culture

A special position developed in the 1920s-1930s in the culture of countries in which totalitarian regimes were established. B. Mussolini, speaking in 1925 at the Congress of the Fascist Party, said: “We want to fascist the nation... Fascism must become a way of life. There must be Italians of the era of fascism, as there were, for example, Italians of the Renaissance. Culture, as well as other spheres of society, fell under the control of the state. In Italy were created state academy and the National Fascist Fine Art Syndicate.

In Germany, the Ministry of Public Education and Propaganda, headed by J. Goebbels, organized the Imperial Chamber of Culture, which included seven sections (press, radio, cinema, literature, theater, musical and visual arts). Persons who were not members of the chamber, in essence, were deprived of the right to engage in artistic activities.

The Nazis waged a "battle for culture" using the harshest methods. Already in 1933, exhibitions began to be held under the Roman civilization with very expressive names: “Signs of Decay in Art”, “The 1938 Exhibition of Degenerate Art”, at which the works of modernist artists were declared “degenerate”. Almost 16,000 works by foreign masters were confiscated from German museums: V. Van Gogh, A. Matisse, P. Picasso, V. Kandinsky, M. Chagall and others, as well as German artists, whose manner did not meet the tastes of the Nazis. Sculptural monuments were destroyed, for example, the works of E. Barlach, dedicated to the fallen in the war. They were declared "offensive to the national feelings of the Germans." In architecture, rationalist currents came under fire from criticism, and the world-famous Bauhaus school was closed. For racial reasons, jazz music was banned (in the USSR it was not accepted for another reason - as a manifestation of an alien bourgeois culture).

What was offered instead of the exiled objectionable culture? First of all, what corresponded to the dominant ideology. Monumentalism reigned in art, which was supposed to reflect the greatness of the new society and the “superman” it generated.

The architectural complex in Nuremberg (with an area of ​​30 sq. km), intended for holding Nazi congresses and celebrations, became a demonstrative building. It included the Palace of Congresses, a stadium for 405,000 seats with stands over 80 meters high, etc. The monumental sculptures of the heroes of German history, athletes with "Nordic features" corresponded to the scale of the buildings.

In German painting, having displaced modernist searches and "streams of the subconscious", the national-romantic style was established. Preference was given to the topics "German land", "German labor", "German mother", "German soldier - defender of the Motherland". A special place in painting and sculpture was occupied by portraits and narrative paintings depicting leaders. The ideologists of totalitarianism, no worse than American filmmakers, imagined the possibilities of influencing people in cinema. It also established the canons for propaganda documentaries and feature films, not excluding entertainment films intended for the mass audience.

References:
Aleksashkina L. N. / General History. XX - the beginning of the XXI century.

The formation of a new culture in the 1930s. Turn to patriotism in the mid-1930s (in culture, art and literature). First congress Soviet writers and its meaning. Socialist realism as a new artistic method. Contradictions in its development and implementation.
In the public consciousness of the thirties, faith in socialist ideals, the enormous authority of the party, began to be combined with "leaderism." Social cowardice, the fear of breaking out of the general ranks, has spread in broad sections of society. The essence of the class approach to social phenomena was reinforced by the personality cult of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. The principles of the class struggle were also reflected in the artistic life of the country. Thus, by the mid-thirties, Soviet national culture had developed into a rigid system with its own socio-cultural values: in philosophy, aesthetics, morality, language, everyday life, and science. Among the values official culture Loyalty to the cause of the Party and the Government, Patriotism, hatred of class enemies, cult love for the leaders of the proletariat, labor discipline, law-abidingness and internationalism dominated. All figures of literature and art were united in single unified unions. From August 17 to August 31, 1934, the first congress of writers took place. "Social realism" was declared the creative method of Soviet literature and art. This term first appeared on May 25, 1932 on the pages of Literaturnaya Gazeta, and a few months later its principles were proposed as fundamental to all Soviet art at Stalin's mysterious meeting with Soviet writers at Gorky's apartment (October 26, 1932). At this meeting, the foundations of the future organization of writers were also laid. Thus, literature was assigned the role of an educational tool, and nothing more. The only artistic method of socialist realism has been established. Acting as the "main creative method" of Soviet culture, socialist realism prescribed the content and structural principles of the work to artists, assuming the existence of a "new type of consciousness" that appeared as a result of the assertion of Marxism-Leninism. Socialist realism was recognized once and for all as the only true and most perfect creative method. This definition of social realism relied on the Stalinist definition of writers as "engineers of human souls." Thus, artistic culture and art were given an instrumental character, that is, the role of an instrument for the formation of a "new man" was assigned. After the establishment of Stalin's personality cult, the pressure on culture and the persecution of dissidents intensified. Literature and art were placed at the service of communist ideology and propaganda. In the literature of the 30s. along with the names of A. M. Gorky (who returned to the country after emigration), A. N. Tolstoy, and other writers with pre-revolutionary fame, new names appeared - M. A. Sholokhov (“Quiet Don”), M. S. Shaginyan (“ Hydrocentral”), V.P. Kataev (“Time, forward!”), I. Ilf and E. Petrov (“The Twelve Chairs”, “The Golden Calf”). Soviet children's literature was formed, represented by the works of S. Ya. Marshak, K. I. Chukovsky, A. P. Gaidar, B. S. Zhitkov and others. building socialism. The recognized masters of this direction were S. V. Gerasimov (“Collective Farm Holiday”), K. S. Petrov-Vodkin (“Death of the Commissar”), A. A. Deineka (“Defense of Petrograd”), M. M. Grekov (“Trumpeters of the First Cavalry Army”), B.V. Ioganson (“Interrogation of the Communists”). The musical life of the country was inextricably linked with the names of the largest composers S. S. Prokofiev, D. D. Shostakovich, A. I. Khachaturian, T. N. Khrennikov, D. B. Kabalevsky, I. O. Dunaevsky and others. a technical revolution took place - domestic film and film equipment appeared, a series of large film studios opened. The first Soviet sound film was the painting by N. V. Ekk “A ticket to life”. The main theme of the cinema was the life of Soviet people, their participation in the events of the revolution (“Deputy of the Baltic” by I. E. Kheifits and A. G. Zarkhi; “October” by S. M. Eisenstein; “Lenin in October” and “Lenin in 1918” "M. I. Romm), civil war ("We are from Kronstadt" by E. L. Dzigan; trilogy about Maxim G. M. Kozintsev and L. Z. Trauberg; "Chapaev" S. and G. Vasiliev), industrialization and collectivization, the development of remote areas of the country ("Seven Courageous", "Komsomolsk" by S. A. Gerasimov). The first musical comedies "Merry Fellows" and "Volga-Volga" (G. V. Aleksandrov), historical films "Peter the Great" (V. M. Petrov), "Alexander Nevsky" (S. M. Eisenstein) were released. Thus, in the 1920-30s. the country has made significant progress in the development of science, education and culture. The illiteracy of the main part of the population was eliminated. took shape one system domestic education. A new engineering, technical and creative intelligentsia has been formed. The largest discoveries were made in the fundamental fields of science, development, and technical thought received. At the same time, culture, science and education were placed under state control. Many representatives of science, culture and art were repressed, and some bright works of art never reached the reader and viewer (the novels by M. A. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita", A. P. Platonov "The Juvenile Sea", "The Pit", "Chevengur"; paintings by P. N. Filonov, K. S. Malevich and others).

The forced modernization of Soviet society had a significant impact on culture. The establishment of the regime of personal power of I. V. Stalin and the strengthening of the totalitarian system led to the unification of cultural processes, the rejection of the cultural revolutionary diversity of the 1920s, the tightening of control over the spiritual and cultural sphere, and repressions against cultural figures.

In the 1930s cultural management bodies were reorganized. If earlier most of the managerial functions were concentrated in the People's Commissariat for Education, then after the resignation in 1929 of A. V. Lunacharsky, serious changes took place: new sectoral management bodies were created - the All-Union Committee for the Arts, the All-Union Committee for Higher Education. Only the lighting system remained under the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat for Education.

Public education continued to solve the problems of eradicating illiteracy. At the turn of the 1920-1930s. the enthusiasm for industrialization and collectivization also embraced the sphere of education. An all-Union cult campaign for literacy was announced. A census of the illiterate and the registration of volunteers in the cult of the army were carried out. Thanks to the colossal work by the end of the 1930s. the problem of illiteracy was solved. According to the 1939 census, the proportion of literates was 87.4%.

By 1933, the transition to compulsory four-year education was completed in the general education school. The expansion of secondary education began. In cities, seven-year schools were reorganized into ten-year schools. recycled learning programs. Since 1934, teaching has been restored national history and geography.

The higher school carried out the task of training personnel for the national economy. Compared with the pre-revolutionary period, the number of universities and the number of students increased tenfold. Since 1935, social restrictions on admission to universities were abolished. In general, in the 1930s. graduate School successfully trained the Soviet technical and humanitarian intelligentsia.

Science was oriented towards meeting the needs of socialist construction. By the mid 1930s. The process of Sovietization of the Academy of Sciences was completed. Ideological control was established over scientists, a new charter was introduced, degrees and titles abolished in 1918. The Academy of Sciences itself was transferred from Leningrad to Moscow.

Planning was introduced into the scientific sphere. Huge scope acquired geological and geographical research. Mineral deposits were discovered: oil between the Volga and the Urals, coal in the Moscow region and Kuzbass.

There were undeniable achievements in the industrial and scientific potential of the country. In 1931, the first television programs began to be broadcast from Moscow. In 1935, the first line of the Moscow metro came into operation. In the late 1930s new samples were created military equipment: T-34 and KV tanks, I-153 fighter, etc.

Soviet scientists made world-wide discoveries in the field of physics (in particular, I. Tamm and I. Frank discovered the electron, etc.).

The social sciences were under severe pressure from the "Short Course of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks" published in 1938, for which it was impossible to go beyond the ideological and methodological framework.

Literature. In artistic culture, the processes of uniformity and unification in the mainstream of the Bolshevik ideological and class predestination were rapidly gaining momentum. The decisive factor here was the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of April 23, 1932 "On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations", on the basis of which various art associations were liquidated and united creative unions were created.

In August 1934, the First All-Union Congress of Writers took place, which created the Writers' Union headed by M. Gorky. Only socialist realism, extended to all areas of artistic creation, was recognized as the fundamental method of literature. In 1936-1938. on the initiative of the party leadership, a campaign was launched to combat formalism and naturalism in art. Composers (D. Shostakovich), theater and film directors (S. Eisenstein, V. Meyerhold), artists (V. Tatlin, V. Favorsky, A. Lentulov, A. Rodchenko and others) were criticized.

Theatre. On the theater stage in the 1930s dominated by the Soviet play. The history of the theater of this period included the "Optimistic Tragedy" by Vs. Vishnevsky. Mass was the opening of children's theaters.

Cinema. Revolutionary changes in cinema are associated with the advent of sound cinema. The first such film was "Start in Life" (1931) directed by N. Eck. The main theme of the cinema is the life of Soviet people, their participation in the revolution ("Deputy of the Baltic" by I. Kheyfets), industrialization ("Komsomolsk" by S. Gerasimov) and collectivization ("Tractor Drivers" by I. Pyryev), etc.

Architecture. in architecture until the late 1930s. constructivism prevailed. According to the designs of the Vesnin brothers, the ZIL Culture Palace (1934), Dneproges (1932) were built. In the same period, the Administrative Building on Okhotny Ryad appeared (1936) designed by architect V. Langmaia (now the State Duma of the Russian Federation is located in this building); hotel "Moscow" (1935) on Manezhnaya Square, built according to the project of architects L. I. Savelyev, O. A. Staprap and A. V. Shchusev.

The outstanding architect A. V. Shchusev (1873-1949) worked fruitfully, among whose creations the Lepin Mausoleum (1930), Moskvoretsky Bridge (1938), etc.

Painting. Historical and revolutionary themes prevailed in painting. One of the creators of Leniniana was I. Brodsky with the painting "Lenin in Smolny" (1930). Leading artist of socialist realism in the 1930s. was B. Ioganson with the paintings "Interrogation of the Communists" (1933), "At the old Ural factory" (1937).

Sculpture. In this area, the sculpture "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" (1937) by V. Mukhina has become a symbol of the time.

History and cultural studies [Izd. second, revised and additional] Shishova Natalya Vasilievna

14.2. The formation of the Soviet system (1917 - 1930s)

General characteristics of the period

The process of formation and approval of the Soviet system took place in complex, constantly changing conditions, which significantly influenced its forms, methods and pace. It can be divided into several stages.

The most important events of the first stage (1917–1920) were the October Revolution, which unfolded in the context of the ongoing World War I, and the ensuing bloody civil war, which lasted four years. The post-war reconstruction and socio-economic transformations in the 1920s took place against the backdrop of a relative stabilization of the world economic and political system. However, the decade ended with a severe global economic crisis in 1929-1932. The thirties were a period of forcing a social experiment with the aim of building socialism in our country. It took place in conditions when fascist parties came to power in a number of European countries, proclaiming a policy of national revenge, when the international situation sharply worsened, and the threat of a new world war became a reality.

In 1917, Russia experienced a revolutionary explosion of tremendous force. According to a number of historians, it was not so much a natural result of the previous development of capitalist relations (as was traditionally considered in Soviet historiography), but a form of resolving the most acute socio-economic and political contradictions of Russian society. The imposition and interweaving of social contradictions that need to be resolved is the “challenge” of history, which Russia had to answer. Researchers believe that the leading ones were the contradictions caused by Russia's lagging behind the advanced, industrialized countries in the field of technology, labor productivity, armament of the army, and the general culture of the population. That is, just those that made the implementation of a general civilizational breakthrough urgent. The country was faced with the tasks of industrialization, restructuring the agricultural sector of the economy, raising the general level of culture of the population, democratizing public life, expanding the rights and freedoms of the individual. Russia has already begun to solve them, but the implementation of new trends was hindered by traditional social structures and relations.

Another group of contradictions were the specific internal disagreements of Russian society: between peasants and landowners, workers and entrepreneurs, interethnic, between the center and the outskirts, etc. The defining factor in this group was the gap between the autocratic form of government and the interests of the majority of society.

Another group of contradictions resulted from the hardships of the world war. The growing economic ruin, the threat of famine, the bitterness of losses and defeats, fatigue and disappointment in the war gave rise to protest in various sections of the population. It was precisely these contradictions that were destined to play the role of the detonator of a revolutionary explosion.

Ideology. Politic system

In 1917, Russia was literally swept by a wave of broad popular movements. The only party that, on the crest of this wave, was able not only to rise to power, but also to keep it, was the Bolshevik Party. It was this party and the ruling elite formed on its basis that acted as an initiative, creative minority, which was to take on the task of resolving socio-economic and political contradictions.

What predetermined the victory of the Bolsheviks in the struggle for power? First of all, they proposed as their immediate program a whole series of political slogans that reflected the urgent, vital interests of various social movements. The Bolsheviks promised peace to the war-weary people, land to the peasants, factories to the workers, and demanded the transfer of all power to the Soviets, which were representative bodies created democratically.

Moreover, the Bolshevik Party not only proposed political slogans that accurately took into account the alignment of forces, but also implemented them immediately after the conquest of power. The first decrees of the Soviet government - on peace, on land, on workers' control, as well as the "Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia" provided him with the support of peasants, workers, front-line soldiers, representatives of national minorities. The Bolsheviks proposed to society as the main goal and main value orientation the construction of a communist society - a society of social justice, where oppression and exploitation of man by man will be destroyed. Although their program contained only the most general, very brief description of the future structure, the communist ideal was firmly established in the mass consciousness, became a generator of social optimism, a means of uniting and mobilizing the masses. In other words, he united, brought together the elite and the masses at a certain stage.

It is natural to ask why this happened. The first to reflect on this topic were historians and philosophers of the Russian diaspora - L. Karsavin, N. Berdyaev, G. Fedotov, S. Frank and others. This problem attracted the attention of historians in the post Soviet Russia. According to researchers, the social ideal proposed by the Bolsheviks coincided with the stable moral and ethical orientations of national self-consciousness. It is characterized by the search for truth and goodness, higher justice, faith in the possibility of a kind of kingdom of God on earth, arranged on the principles of brotherly love and understanding. As N. A. Berdyaev noted, “communism included familiar features” of the spiritual ideal of a significant part of Russian society: “the thirst for social justice and equality, the recognition of the working classes as the highest human type, the disgust for capitalism and the bourgeoisie…”.

In developing policies in various fields, the Bolsheviks proceeded from the provisions of Marxist theory. The ideological determinism of the policy of the ruling party is one of the most important features of Soviet society. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that Marxism is a rather contradictory and complex scientific doctrine, the assimilation of which requires a certain level of education, culture, and requires great effort and time. The vast majority of not only the population of the country, but also members of the ruling party did not have all this. Therefore, already in the 1920s, there was a tendency to compress Marxist-Leninist theory into generalized formulations that had the character of an official doctrine. This process culminated in 1938 with the publication of a brief "History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)", after which a special resolution was adopted declaring the book "an encyclopedia of basic knowledge in the field of Marxism-Leninism."

The main political process of the 1920s and 1930s was the formation of state institutions and power mechanisms of the Soviet system. The Civil War showed the inconsistency of the Bolshevik idea of ​​the dictatorship of the people through the Soviets, since even then the difference in the nature of the Soviets, which reflected the opposing interests of various social groups, was already manifested. In conditions of war and devastation, only a rigid centralization of control could correct the situation. The powers of the central executive bodies were consistently expanded, a large number of emergency bodies were created that exercised power in addition to the Soviets.

In the 1920s, the process of concentrating the main functions of state administration in the hands of the party and state apparatus was completed, a new ruling stratum was formed - nomenclature. The nomenclature (from Latin - a list) is a list of the most important posts and positions in state, Soviet, economic and other bodies, candidates for which were previously considered and approved by party committees. The nomenklatura is also called the people who occupied these posts and constituted a special social group with their own interests, lifestyle, ideology, and privileges.

In the same years, a change of elites took place in the ruling party itself, real power passed from the old Bolsheviks into the hands of the nomenklatura, which was formed primarily from the replenishment that came to the party during the years of the civil war and after it ended. People from the lower classes of society brought with them social anger and cruelty into political life and power structures. These people lacked experience, knowledge, education, common culture, so they tried to compensate for all this with loyalty to the party and enthusiasm. Gradually, the criterion of devotion, first to the idea, and then to the people who personified it, became the main one in the selection and placement of personnel.

In the 30s after the wave mass repression one of the main sources of replenishment of the leading cadres was the new "socialist" intelligentsia. The circumstances under which this layer of Soviet leaders (young, energetic, but inexperienced) came to the fore left a deep imprint on their fate. The psychology of the nominees of the 1930s is well revealed in one of A. Beck's novels, The New Appointment. The hero of the novel was a man of this time: ““Soldier of the Party” - these were not empty words for him. Then, when another expression came into use, “Stalin’s soldier”, he proudly and, no doubt, rightfully considered himself such a soldier ... " The main life commandment of people of this type was the obligatory and unconditional execution of orders. Soon after October revolution the anti-democratic nature of the new government began to manifest itself. This was evidenced by the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the deprivation of political rights of certain groups of the population, the violation of freedom of speech, the press, the introduction of censorship, and much more.

During the civil war, all parties, except for the Bolsheviks, were finally ousted from political life. In 1922–1923 a series of trials took place over the former political allies of the Bolsheviks - the Mensheviks and the Left SRs, who were accused of crimes against Soviet power. These parties were banned. Thus, the creation of a one-party political system was completed.

The forcing of socialist construction in the 1930s on the basis of coercion and violent methods led to a toughening of the political regime in the country. A special place in the mechanism of power was occupied by punitive and repressive bodies (NKVD, NKGB, etc.), controlled only by Stalin. The country was swept by mass repressions. The trials of the old intelligentsia, specialists (the so-called “Shakhty case”, “academic case”, the trials of the Industrial Party, the Labor Peasant Party) supplemented the judicial and non-judicial reprisals against the remnants of the opposition party groups (L. Kamenev, G. Zinoviev, N. Bukharin, A Rykov and others), party and military personnel. The peak of mass repressions occurred in 1936–1938. Their main goal is to relieve social tension by identifying and punishing "enemies", to nip any oppositional sentiments in the bud, and to ensure the unconditional power of the center over the periphery. The number of political prisoners in the 1930s exceeded 3 million people.

Elected authorities, democratic rights and freedoms, proclaimed by the Constitution of 1936, were of a formal nature. The real power was in the party-state apparatus, which relied on social demagogy and the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses, on the one hand, and on punitive and repressive bodies, on the other. The new government sought to control all spheres of public life without exception - the economy, culture, social relations, spiritual life. The nationalization of public life is the most important trend in the development of the Soviet political system in the 1920s and 1930s, which makes it possible to characterize it as totalitarian.

Economy

In the sphere of economic relations, the Bolsheviks considered it necessary to abolish private ownership of the means of production as the basis of exploitation, commodity-money relations as an instrument of class violence. They were to be replaced by public property, the organization of society according to the type of communes, and broad self-government of the working people. According to a number of philosophers (S. Frank, N. Berdyaev), the Bolsheviks' calls for the destruction of private property were supported by millions because they corresponded to the deepest aspirations of the national character. The Russian people did not have "disinterested faith in the sanctity of the principle of ownership" (S. Frank). Russia was a country where big money did not inspire unconditional respect, and public recognition had to be earned in other ways. According to M. Tsvetaeva, "the awareness of the untruth of money in the Russian soul is indestructible."

The theoretical ideas of the Bolsheviks determined the first steps in the economic field. In 1917–1920 land, thousands of industrial enterprises, banks, transport and communications, trade, housing stock were nationalized. Thus, a powerful public sector was created in the economy. Very soon it became clear that in conditions of war, an acute shortage of raw materials, fuel, labor, food, emergency measures were needed in order to get the economy going. The emerging management system was based on the principles of monopolization of the produced product, centralized distribution, command (directive) method of management, forced labor. Such measures as the curtailment of money circulation, equalization in payment and distribution, the abolition of payment for heating, food, utilities, transport, consumer goods, created an external, formal resemblance to the communist society as it seemed at that time. Hence the name of the economic policy of the period of the civil war - war communism.

Gradually, measures that the ruling party itself initially assessed as forced began to be seen as optimal for moving towards communism. There was a growing conviction in the party that the policy of war communism could be used even after the end of the war to restore the economy and build socialism. However, attempts to preserve and strengthen the military-communist measures led to a sharp aggravation of social tension, caused a total crisis of the Soviet system. Particular dissatisfaction, up to open resistance, was caused by the surplus appropriation among the peasants - a system of procurement of agricultural products, which deprived them of their interest in increasing production beyond the bare necessities, since the "surplus" was confiscated in favor of the state. It became clear that a revision of the ways of overcoming the crisis and advancing towards socialism was necessary. These difficult tasks were solved within the framework of the New Economic Policy (NEP), which the party launched in 1921.

The new policy was based on the idea of ​​allowing various forms of ownership in the country's economy, including the private one. Economic levers were to become the main ones in the management of the national economy, it was with their help that it was supposed to establish an exchange between the city and the countryside, instead of curtailing commodity-money relations, freedom of trade was proclaimed. The surplus appropriation was replaced by a tax in kind, which created the economic interest of the peasants in the restoration and expansion of production.

The NEP was a cycle of successive measures to overcome the crisis. They were dictated by objective circumstances (like war communism once was), but gradually came to be seen by Lenin and some other Bolshevik leaders as a possible program for building socialism by economic means. However, by the end of the 1920s, the situation had changed. 1927 was the year of "military anxiety" caused by the complication of diplomatic relations between the USSR and a number of countries, in 1929-1932. the global economic crisis broke out. The leadership of the Communist Party came to the conclusion that the aggressiveness of imperialism was growing, that a new phase of wars and revolutions was approaching. In this regard, the task was to strengthen the USSR as the base of the world revolution, to create a powerful military-political potential. This presupposed the acceleration of the pace of socialist transformations and, above all, the implementation of the accelerated industrialization of the country.

The transition to a new political course - the offensive of socialism along the entire front - was also due to the preservation of the "military-communist" ideology among a significant part of the ruling elite - to quickly, on the basis of enthusiasm, storm to introduce socialism. The year of the “great turning point” was 1929. The new course in the economy included: the curtailment of the NEP, the abolition of independent enterprises, the replacement of commodity-money relations between them with directive planning and state supply; a significant expansion of capital investments in industry while reducing investments in the social sphere; complete collectivization based on the use of violent methods, a sharp increase in state grain procurements on the basis of coercion; transition from predominantly economic to predominantly command, administrative methods of management.

The result of the economic breakthrough of the 1930s was the creation of a powerful industry capable of mastering the production of products of any degree of complexity, the opening of about 9 thousand industrial enterprises. In terms of industrial production, by the beginning of the 1940s, the country had taken second place in the world after the United States. However, the lag of our economy behind the level of Western countries was overcome only in the basic branches of heavy industry, the development of which was given special attention, since they were the most advanced in that era (energy, metallurgy and engineering, chemical industry), were the basis of the military-industrial complex and at the same time an "industrializing industry" - a transmission mechanism of industrial technology to other sectors of the economy.

Forced industrialization plunged the country into a state of general mobilization and tension, as in war, because plans, as a rule, were unrealistic. Increasing economic chaos and social disorder, they caused an increasing need for state management of the economic sphere, which replaced the laws of a market economy.

The administrative-command system, which became the main means and result of the forced transformations of the 1930s, contained deep contradictions, it contained limited opportunities for economic development. Based on the execution of orders from the center, it extinguished and limited the initiative and independence of producers, did not create conditions for their interest in the growth of production.

The end of the 1920s and 1930s became the time when the ruling party again and again tried to realize its ideas about a socialist society, completely abandon the use of economic levers (including money circulation) in organizing economic life, relying on enthusiasm, impulse and revolutionary impatience of the masses. However, each time this turned out to be impossible and it was necessary to retreat, soften the tough economic policy, look for ways to stabilize the situation in industry and agriculture.

social structure. public consciousness

The establishment of the political system, transformations in the field of the economy were associated with complex processes that took place in the social sphere. After the end of the civil war, Russian society was a society of broken social layers and ties. The social structure has changed radically. The human losses were huge - since 1914 they amounted to about 20 million people; more than 2 million people emigrated from Russia. There was a liquidation of the remnants of the exploiting classes - the nobility, the bourgeoisie, the bureaucracy, the clergy, the officers, the bourgeois intelligentsia. Decreased urban population, the number of industrial workers in the leading industrial centers decreased by 5-7 times, the process of declassing the proletariat began - the workers returned to the village to peasant labor. White and red terror, devastation, famine, epidemics claimed thousands of lives, gave rise to child homelessness (in 1922 there were about 7 million homeless children), and led to a sharp increase in crime. Society as a whole was tired of the war, upheavals, and needed a respite.

The transition to the New Economic Policy was welcomed by the general population. The peasantry got the opportunity to manage their land. The recovery of industry and commerce created new jobs. This policy was supported by a significant part of the intelligentsia, as they expected that within its framework a class of new owners would grow and strengthen, which would force the authorities to abandon extremism in the economy and politics and evolve towards the formation of "normal" bourgeois-democratic orders. These sentiments were reflected in the collection of articles "Change of milestones" (Prague, 1921), which gave the name to the whole movement - "Smenovekhovism".

However, there were also social forces in society that were not interested in the NEP. The Bolsheviks, seeking to destroy the old society and thus clear the way for the construction of a new one, turned to the lowest, most obscure and uneducated sections of the working class and peasantry. It seemed to them that the less these people were attached to the old, by definition bourgeois culture, the easier and faster they would accept the new socialist ideals. Back in 1918, M. Gorky wrote that the Bolsheviks put forward "inflammatory slogans, awakening the basest and darkest instincts of the crowd." The consequence of this was that the value orientations, moods, life aspirations of the lower social strata, declassed elements began to play a significant role in society. The slogan of social justice was perceived by them as a call for the redistribution of social wealth, transformed in their minds into an accessible and understandable one - "rob the loot." It was these social strata who had a negative attitude towards the NEP, which forced them to put up with property differences. The townspeople were dissatisfied with the continued unemployment, rising food prices, and the abolition of cards. A significant part of the peasant poor sought to improve their situation on the basis of the principle: "Take away and divide." Many could not calmly look at private Nepmen who were fattening in expensive restaurants: “What did you fight for in civilian life ?!” These sentiments were also strong among party and Soviet workers. The transition to speeding up socialist construction at the end of the 1920s was close to the psychology of the backward sections of the workers and peasants, who were inclined to assault methods, striving to break out of difficulties faster, in spite of everything.

From the end of the 1920s and during the 1930s, the trend in the social sphere to oust those social groups that were not associated with state or collective, cooperative property was gaining strength. Severe tax pressure and repressive measures led to the disappearance of the Nepman bourgeoisie (owners and tenants of small and medium-sized industrial enterprises, private traders). As a result of the policy of complete collectivization and the liquidation of the kulaks, individual peasants disappeared in the countryside, and a collective-farm peasantry was formed. At the same time, according to various estimates, from 5 to 7 million peasants and members of their families became victims of repression, about 5 million people died from the famine of 1932-1933. in the grain regions of the country, which was the result of the use of emergency measures during grain procurement.

In 1933, the passport system was introduced, but the collective farmers were not issued passports and they were actually attached to the collective farms, not having the right to leave the village without permission.

An extremely important process, reflecting the structural changes in Soviet society during this period, was a sharp increase in the number of factory workers, the urban population. Thus, during the first five-year plan alone, the number of workers increased from 2.7 to 12.4 million people. In total, from 1926 to 1939, the urban population increased by 30 million people. These changes in the social sphere testified to the transition from the traditional to the industrial type of society.

The position of the intelligentsia remained difficult, the policy of the ruling party towards it was contradictory. On the one hand, in the conditions of unfolding industrialization, the Soviet government needed specialists and sought to win them over to its side using various means, and on the other hand, it had a deep distrust of them. At the same time, the technical intelligentsia associated with production was declared closer to the class of the proletariat than the humanitarian one. This approach led to the emigration and forced expulsion from the country in the 1920s of a large number of representatives of the creative intelligentsia.

In the 1930s, the policy towards the old intelligentsia became even tougher. A number of public trials took place over its representatives, who were accused of wrecking and helping class enemies. These processes made it possible to make the intelligentsia responsible for economic difficulties, disproportions and disruptions in the economy that arose as a result of forcing industrialization (that is, to remove responsibility for the above from the leadership of the country and the party). The old specialists were to be replaced by the new intelligentsia, which was formed from workers and peasants.

Forced industrialization, the chaotic and unplanned growth of cities led to interruptions in their food supply, and an aggravation of the housing problem. The material situation of the workers and their families was deteriorating, and there was a decline in real wages. At many construction sites, the principle has triumphed: "first - the factory, then - the city." The already huge, as they said then, “commodity hunger” sharply escalated. Constant interruptions in the supply of cities forced the introduction of a rationing system for the distribution of goods. In the second half of the 1930s, the situation of workers and peasants began to improve, but the actual standard of living of most urban strata was below the level of 1928. But even a temporary stabilization of the situation, a certain increase in well-being contributed to an increase in enthusiasm, which was expressed, in particular, in the development of the Stakhanov movement .

Under the influence of the fundamental changes that took place in various spheres of society, a new type of personality began to take shape. In Soviet historiography, this process was viewed as a process of improving human nature, cultivating new qualities in him - collectivism, comradeship, selflessness, devotion to socialist ideals, the ability to subordinate personal interests to public ones. In literature recent years assessments have changed - the Soviet person has lost attractive qualities and acquired negative traits: he is a slave, a performer, his ideal is wretched equality. Many philosophers and historians of the Russian diaspora, as well as Western researchers, did not assess changes in the Russian national type so unequivocally.

Obviously, the personality type of a Soviet person was formed under the influence of various factors. The upheavals experienced by the country, accelerated industrialization and urbanization (growth of cities) led to the fact that millions of people appeared in the country, cut off from their native soil, forced to part with their usual rural way of life, to master a new urban life. People who were knocked out of their social cells for various reasons, lost touch with traditional culture and habitual life, hardly got used to life in the city, took root in a new place.

The rapid increase in the number of people associated with modern technology, industrial labor, has significantly changed the socio-cultural characteristics of society. The Russian philosopher N. Berdyaev called the technology and technization of life a force "having almost cosmic significance for the fate of mankind." He emphasized that technogenic civilization turns a person into the image and likeness of a machine, leads to the disintegration of a person into certain functions, the leveling of the personal, individual beginning in a person, facilitating the ability to manipulate him. Moreover, these processes do not depend on the social system, they are a natural consequence of the transition to an industrial and urban society.

One of the most important factors in the formation of a special type of personality of a Soviet person was the official ideology, which affirmed in society a new system of values, moral and ethical attitudes. She claimed to be universal, the embodiment of truth and historical justice, while the ideals she proclaimed were to be taken on faith, and their implementation belonged to the future. In addition, the radical reorganization of society and man, necessary for the realization of socialist ideals, was supposed to be carried out using violence. In the new system of values, human individuality was valued low, everyone had to feel first of all a participant in the construction of a new society, ready to sacrifice everything for the common cause. However, recognizing the importance of the official ideology in the life of Soviet society, one cannot but agree with those researchers (A. Gurevich, I. Kondakov) who believe that those aspects of ideology that find their soil in cultural archetypes, in the mentality of the people take root in society. processed in accordance with them.

At one time, N. Berdyaev, G. Fedotov, N. Lossky wrote that the striking difference between a Soviet person and a Russian is apparent. Thus, according to Fedotov, the revolution destroyed only the upper historical layers in the Russian person, which were formed in the 18th-19th centuries, and led to the triumph of the Moscow type: “The age-old habit of obedience, the weak development of personal consciousness, the need for freedom, the ease of life in a team,“ in service and tax ”- this is what unites a Soviet person with old Moscow”. The transfer of the capital to Moscow can in this sense be regarded as a symbolic act. The Soviet government also worked on the Russian man - thanks to her, he learned "superficial, narrowed content modern civilization- military sports life, Marxism, Darwinism and technology".

Despite all the difficulties, the scale of the socio-economic transformations of the 1930s gave rise to people's feelings of optimism and belonging to a great era. Generations of people who grew up under the Soviet regime, sincerely devoted to it and ready to defend it with weapons in their hands, entered into life. They believed that the most progressive and just social system was being created in our country. In the diary of Zhenya Rudneva, a Moscow schoolgirl who was a pilot during the war, one can read the following lines written in 1937: “You find the only joy in the newspapers when you read about us, about the USSR - my wonderful Motherland. Today is exactly one year from the day when Comrade Stalin made a report on the draft Constitution, in 10 days - Constitution Day, in 17 days - elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Everyone is in high spirits ... I live a full-blooded life. And how can I not love my Motherland, which gives me such a happy life?!”

At the same time, the consequence of mass repressions, the establishment of an administrative-command system, became such features of public consciousness and behavior as the refusal of independence in decision-making, blind obedience to orders, fear of responsibility, the folding of the psychology of the “man-cog” in the state mechanism, the fall of creative initiative, fear and suspicion.

Soviet society was characterized by a willingness to take what was desired for reality, a rejection of criticism and doubts about the superiority of its own development model. The public consciousness perceived and evaluated the past and present through the prism of rigid dual categories. The division of the world into “us” and “them”, into friends and enemies, oriented, aimed society at struggle. "We" are the first and only country of socialism, "they" are the hostile capitalist environment, the clash of these two worlds is inevitable. A typical image of the USSR is given in one of Stalin's speeches of those years: “Among the raging waves of economic shocks and military-political catastrophes, the USSR stands apart like a cliff, continuing its work of socialist construction, the struggle to preserve peace”. This specificity of social consciousness is very accurately reflected in the poetic lines:

... I remember, I did not regret the holiday

No black ink, no white,

The whole world on white and red

Shared unconditionally.

… I knew about the Azov blast furnaces

And that Rome is on strike again.

And I burned with love for my friends

And he was irreconcilable to enemies!

E. Vinokurov. From poems about childhood

The psychology of life in a besieged fortress, the expectation of war, the need to be vigilant in the midst of numerous external and internal enemies, firmly entered the consciousness of pre-war society.

culture

In the 1920s and 1930s, complex and contradictory processes took place in the sphere of culture. The element of destruction brought to life by the revolution dealt a tangible blow to Orthodox culture, the culture of the Russian provinces, and the estate culture. At the same time, the revolution could not overnight extinguish the creative energy of the Russian cultural revival. It is his impulses that explain the emergence in the early 1920s of many new artistic movements, scientific schools in sociology, psychology, pedagogy, and the natural sciences.

Despite the hardships of the civil war, folklore and ethnographic expeditions were organized, new museums and publishing houses were created. One of the most famous is the World Literature publishing house, which carried out a lot of educational work. Its editorial board included M. Gorky, A. Blok, N. Gumilyov, E. Zamyatin, K. Chukovsky. Many literary circles and studios appeared, in which people from various social strata were engaged, they were led by famous writers, such as, for example, V. Khodasevich, A. Bely. The amateur theatrical movement gained wide scope.

Thus, the revolution simultaneously manifested both a destructive and a creative force. The dominance of destructive tendencies was explained not only by the fact that the revolution itself is called upon primarily to destroy, but also by the fact that for the most part not cultural forces capable of positive work were involved in active actions, but the most undeveloped and dark ones. As these forces became more and more firmly established in the state, they crushed under themselves the element of creative energy that made its way at the initial stage of the revolution.

An important place in the cultural life of the 1920s was occupied by discussions about attitudes towards the cultural heritage of the past and about what the new culture should be like. Supporters of the left currents considered it necessary to abandon bourgeois culture, to break with the past, to create something absolutely new outside of historical and cultural traditions. In 1917, the Proletarian Culture (Proletkult) organization was formed, whose members were opponents of the old culture and advocated the creation of a new one, insisting that it be purely proletarian, that is, it should be addressed to the proletariat and created only by proletarian artists and writers.

In addition, representatives of the avant-garde believed that art is a means of transforming social reality and educating a new person. The most important position of their aesthetic system: art is not only a way of reflecting the real world, real reality, but also a means of transforming and changing it. A prominent figure in Proletkult A. Gastev introduced the term "social engineering". In relation to art, it meant a radical restructuring of art by means of not only social life, but also the human psyche. One of the leaders of the Left Front (LEF) group, the futurist S. Tretyakov, wrote that "the art worker must become a psycho-engineer, a psycho-constructor...".

The idea of ​​"forging a new man" by means of literature and art was one of the central ideas in the discussions of the creative intelligentsia of the 1920s, it was shared by representatives of various currents of the Russian avant-garde. The LEF group, which included V. Mayakovsky, D. Burliuk, O. Brik, was engaged in the search for new expressive forms to solve this problem in literature, in the theater - Vs. Meyerhold, in architecture - K. Melnikov, in cinema - S. Eisenstein, G. Kozintsev and many others. In the visual arts, the left movements were represented by: the Society of Easel Artists (OST), the 4 Arts group (K. Petrov-Vodkin, P. Kuznetsov), the Society of Moscow Artists (OMH) (P. Konchalovsky, I. Mashkov, A. Lentulov, R. Falk), constructivists (V. Tatlin, L. Lissitzky), etc.

Supporters of the left movements, due to their revolutionary nature, found themselves in the center of a social explosion, they were the first to cooperate with the new government, seeing in it a kindred force. They took part in the implementation of the monumental propaganda plan, were engaged in the "revolutionary" design of cities. M. Chagall, one of the "founding fathers" of modern art, and during the years of the revolution - Commissar of the People's Commissariat for Education, later wrote about this time: "...Lenin turned Russia upside down just like I do in my paintings".

The fundamental concept of creating a new man put forward by the avant-garde became the main task of Soviet culture. However, on the issue of expressive means and forms of the new culture, the ruling party made a choice in favor of traditionalism and realism, banning experiments in this area by directive order (Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations” of April 23, 1932) and declaring socialist realism the unified and obligatory artistic method for Soviet literature and art. This choice was made largely in connection with the belief of the Bolsheviks that the new culture, which will have to appeal to the undereducated and cultural sections of the population, should use the most familiar and understandable forms for these social strata.

The Charter of the Union of Soviet Writers, established in 1934, formulated the basic principles of the new method, stated that it “requires from the artist a truthful, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. At the same time, the truthfulness and historical concreteness of the artistic depiction of reality must be combined with the task of ideologically reshaping and educating the working people in the spirit of socialism..

One of the main tasks of Soviet art was to create the image of a positive hero, an active life changer, selflessly devoted to the party and the state, to whom all Soviet people, especially young people, were to be equal. A distinctive feature of art has become social optimism. They permeated the novels of M. Sholokhov, L. Leonov, V. Kataev, N. Ostrovsky, the films “Chapaev” by S. and G. Vasiliev, “Earth” by A. Dovzhenko, “Deputy of the Baltic” by I. Kheifits and A. Zarkhi, “ Komsomolsk" by S. Gerasimov, a trilogy about Maxim G. Kozintsev and others.

The most talented works of those years reflected the remaining inertia of the revolutionary upsurge, the romantic vision of the events of the revolution and the civil war, the enthusiasm of the creators of the new society, who sincerely believed in the possibility of realizing their dreams.

In the 1930s, artistic culture became more and more canonical; a strict hierarchy of genres and themes was established in it. She openly focused on the "social order" of the ruling elite. For example, paying great attention to showing the events of the revolution and the civil war, creating images of leaders, artists, writers, filmmakers often deliberately created pictures and images that had little in common with reality. So, in the official portraits of Stalin, the shortcomings of his physical appearance disappeared - not a living, real person appeared before the audience, but a symbol, the personification of an idea. At the same time, domestic history was undergoing a significant transformation in literature and art.

Not only the past, but also the future was subject to transformation on the basis of ideological attitudes. Thus, “defense literature”, “defense cinematography”, which appeared in the 1930s as a response to the growing military threat, portrayed the future war in full accordance with official forecasts as a dashing campaign, as an instant victory over the enemy without casualties and difficulties. For example, the hero of the film "Tankmen" was sent to reconnaissance, but overfulfilled the task - he began hostilities, reached Berlin and captured Hitler. After the outbreak of the war, one of the leaders of the Union of Writers A. Surkov was forced to admit that “... before war, we often disorientated the reader about the true nature of future tests. We portrayed the war too lightly. I don't want to offend anyone, but the slogans "and we are in the water. we won’t drown, and we won’t burn in fire”, “ebullient, powerful, invincible by anyone…” cultivated thoughtless narcissism… Before the war, we served the reader war in a colorful candy wrapper, and when this candy wrapper unfolded on June 22, a scorpion crawled out of it, which painfully bit our hearts - the scorpion of the reality of a difficult, big war ".

The specifics of the mass audience of the 1930s (primarily the low level of education and culture) not only determined its interest in the most understandable and accessible forms of cultural life (especially cinema), but also made them extremely effective. B. Babochkin, analyzing the success of the film "Chapaev", wrote that for the audience of the 30s, the immediacy of the perception of the film, "complete faith in the authenticity, the primordial nature of the events taking place was approaching its absolute, its hundred percent". Visual screen images, like the heroes of literature, firmly entered the minds of people, were perceived by them with great confidence. The possibilities of art were actively used by the ruling elite to create a myth about the happy life of the people building socialism, to manipulate public consciousness.

The main criterion for assessing works of culture in the 30s was their compliance with the official ideology. An uncompromising struggle was waged against cultural figures whose works did not meet the strict requirements of "socialist realism". Thus, in the second half of the 1930s, a campaign was carried out to overcome "formalism" and "naturalism" in art. D. Shostakovich, S. Eisenstein, N. Zabolotsky, Yu. Olesha, I. Babel were accused of formalism. Artists A. Lentulov and D. Shterenberg were called "dirty bastards with malicious intent."

The most important feature of Soviet culture was the strict control over it by the party and the state. Already in the 1920s, cultural institutions were nationalized, and a management system began to take shape, which lasted until the 1990s. In 1922–1923 Glavlit and Glavrepertkom were created, which monitored compliance with censorship requirements in the press and the repertoire of theaters and cinemas.

The party-state control over various spheres of cultural life intensified even more in the 1930s. Then creative unions were created, outside of which the work of cultural figures was impossible, as well as a number of special bodies that carried out centralized management of culture: the All-Union Committee for Radio Broadcasting, the Committee for the Arts, the Main Directorate of Cinematography, the All-Union Committee for Higher Education, etc.

In relation to the cultural heritage, the principle of "mastering" it was proclaimed, that is, the need for cultural continuity and the preservation of tradition was recognized. However, mastery meant rethinking, reassessment of the spiritual heritage of the past from the point of view of the class interests of the proletariat. The whole culture was divided into progressive and reactionary, which could and should have been discarded. As a result, for a number of generations of Soviet people, literature, art, philosophy of the early 20th century. remained unknown, as they were assessed as decadent and decadent.

In the 1930s, a pragmatic, utilitarian approach to culture intensified, its development was directly linked to the solution of current economic problems. Under the conditions of accelerated industrialization, one of the most important tasks of the cultural revolution was recognized as the rapid training of a sufficient number of workers with the necessary knowledge and skills. If on the eve of the October Revolution three-quarters of the adult population of Russia could neither read nor write, by the mid-1930s the vast majority of the adult population had become literate. During this period, not only primary, but also secondary and higher schools developed rapidly. As in other areas of culture, the class approach was consistently implemented in the education system. Those from workers and peasants enjoyed the preferential right to enter universities, the admission of "socially alien elements" was limited.

An analysis of the socio-cultural processes of this period shows that Soviet culture was formed as an urban, industrial culture. In this capacity, it opposed not only bourgeois culture, but also peasant culture. At its core, it was popular culture. It closely intertwined processes inherent in the culture of the era of industrial revolutions, and specific ones, due to the peculiarity of the development of Soviet society. The former include, first of all, the democratization of culture and education, the emergence and spread of new types of art based on the use of technical means (radio, cinema), thanks to which the achievements of culture became available to the widest sections of the population, and the formation of mass culture.

The specificity of Soviet culture was its deep ideologization, the directive approval of a single artistic method (unification of culture), the restriction of freedom of creativity, the loss of a significant part of the cultural heritage, the annihilation (destruction) of cultural traditions, the elevation of mass culture to the rank of official, a utilitarian attitude towards it, isolation, isolation from world culture.

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